


The Night Dance of Saint Amandus

by FluffyLlamacorn



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: (i hope i managed to achieve), Dancing, F/M, Festivals, Fluff, M/M, Multi, OT3, Polyamory, Slow Dancing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Waltzing, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 04:28:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17015733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FluffyLlamacorn/pseuds/FluffyLlamacorn
Summary: Rilla and Damien invite Arum to a festival and he finds he enjoys the tradition of dancing the night away in the name of love much more than he had expected.





	The Night Dance of Saint Amandus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thewalrus_said](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewalrus_said/gifts).



The crowds start to drift towards the band as the sunset draws near and the sky begins to darken. The earlier parts of the festival – the food, the crowds, the speeches – have been good entertainment, but now the main event is about to start.

Arum lets Damien and Amaryllis drag the three of them through the crowd at an excited pace. Between their speed, Damien being a well-respected knight of the crown and Arum still being, well, given space to put it nicely, they manage to place themselves quite centrally with the other dancers far enough away from them to breathe.

“Ready?” Amaryllis asks the both of them, the word both soft and firm on her lips. She’s beautiful, her long braid cascading over her shoulder and her eyes shining with excitement. Arum gently places one hand on the small of her back, where her radiant yellow sari separates. Another hand holds her single right hand and he gives a squeeze.

“Always.” He gets the small giggle he had been hoping for.

“Not quite,” Damien says. His voice is fast in the way that means his excitement can give way to anxiety any moment, but hasn’t crossed the border quite yet. He’s smiling hugely, so broadly it seems to Arum he simply can’t contain his joy.

“What are we missing?” Arum asks.

“The proper introductions,” his honeysuckle says exactly as the torches go out. Arum notices Amaryllis fondly rolling her eyes at his dramatic timing.

Everyone looks to the band where a minstrel is waiting to speak. Once he has everyone’s attention, he does so with a clear and powerful voice. “Tonight we celebrate the life of Saint Amandus and aspire to follow his example! Saint Amandus met his wife at a festival just like this one and built their fabled bond of love step by step as they danced the night away, all the way from sunset to the next sunrise. Any couple, uh, dancers,” he corrects himself as his eyes fall on, and then quickly dart away from, Arum, towering significantly over the humans, “who does likewise will receive his blessing and support to grow old together as he did with his wife despite their many obstacles.”

“You tell the story better,” Arum mutters to Damien. His version of the story had actually informed Arum of the saint’s life and why he should care beyond the blessing the dance offers.

The sun is almost gone, the last streaks coloring the sky a fiery red. As the colors disappear behind the growth of the forest, the minstrel concludes. “You may now initiate the dance.”

“You honor me,” Damien says. With a flourish, he bows low facing Arum. “But now I must ask you to honor me yet again. May I have this dance?”

“You may,” Arum says and holds out a hand.

Damien takes it and presses a kiss to the back of it. Still holding his hand, he gets up and bows for Amaryllis, just as low a bow. “And you, my lady? May I have this dance?”

“Of course,” she says and her hand receives a kiss as well. Her enjoyment makes her voice melodic.

Damien stands up from his bow in time with the first notes playing from the band. It’s a slow song and the three lovers move closer as they start to sway together, walking in circles in the systematic way humans have dubbed waltzing. Arum puts his final hand on Damien’s shoulder and lets the humans lead the dance. Monsters have music, yes, but this sort of organized dancing is an inherently human concept. Not only do two or more people have to make their movements fit together, there are expectations that the dance must fit with everyone dancing around them and there are a ridiculous amount of other dancers.

The Night Dance of Saint Amandus is one of the most popular celebrations of minor saints in the Second Citadel, Damien had explained. Every young couple will be dancing and looking around, Arum believes him. There must be hundreds, if not more, couples around them, all swaying softly in circles together, trying to figure out how much space they have for themselves. So many couples dance all night, not participating at all is seen as a sign the couple has given up on growing old together. As people decide they have danced enough to mark their dedication, there will be more space left for the serious dancers to spread their wings.

The seventh time someone bumps into his tail, Arum grits his teeth, curses the horrible night vision humans seem to possess and curls the tail around his lovers, resting it on Amaryllis’ shoulder. She leans into it with her head to caress it in greeting, her hands too occupied to acknowledge it. Immediately, human couples start to move closer and while a part of Arum is thankful to note their distance had honestly been a question of respecting his larger size, he can’t help the much larger part of him that is disappointed by the sudden absence of breathing room.

He also can’t help the pang of jealousy as he notes how easily the couple are able to dance together, how closely they can partake of each other’s space. They have no social boundaries to redefine, no tricky physical solutions to figure out. He pulls both Damien and Amaryllis that bit closer and, as the two let go of each other’s hands to rest on each other’s shoulder and waist instead, he can’t help but wish they had actually found the time to practice dancing all three together as they’d discussed several times. Unfortunately, if Damien wasn’t on a mission, Amaryllis was too deeply engaged in her studies to be disturbed, and the one time there had actually been time for dancing, Arum had been at a critical stage in rebuilding his garden and couldn’t spare a moment for such frivolous fun.

Now he wishes he had. Not only is it difficult and something he wishes to get better at, it truly _is_ fun. Damien is by far the best dancer of the three, confidently leading them in slowly twisting circles without bumping into anyone. His right hand on Amaryllis’ left shoulder and his left entwined in one of Arum’s, he is completely in his elements of constant vigilance for unseen dangers and courtly entertainment. Amaryllis keeps fumbling when she has to step backwards, the dance slightly different from usual for having a third member, but while it’s the sort of small mistakes that could drive her mad if she did the equivalent during an experiment, tonight it just amuses her. She knows she’s not an amazing dancer and doesn’t expect to be. She can enjoy the process anyway.

And so can Arum. Finding time for the three of them to be together and just _be_ is… rare. There’s always something to do, but right now they can focus on each other, their presence, their breath, their company, without caring about anything else. The dance could have been boring, but the movements are instead meditative.

Arum has no clue how much time has actually transpired when the music changes from a slow, steady melody to a slightly more irregular and interesting tune. He looks up to find many couples slowly making their way out off the dance area.

“Are you fine with continuing?” Damien asks, nervous voice this time dangerously close to anxiety.

“Of course,” Arum responds immediately. “I was under the impression we wanted to dance until sunrise?”

“Yes, yes of course, I was just… I wanted to make sure you were still enjoying yourself,” Damien mutters uncertainly. “It’s one thing to know what will happen and quite another to live through it in real life. There are quite a lot of humans around and I know you’re still getting used to that and-”

“Damien,” Amaryllis says with the voice that works, the voice that’s direct enough to cut through his worries, but soft enough to comfort him. “It’s wonderful.”

“Yes,” Arum says slowly. He is still working on learning how to copy Amaryllis’ comforting trick. “But thank you for making sure.”

“Besides, we’re reaching the truly fun part,” Amaryllis says, her smile more radiant than the moon above. “There’s finally space to do actual dancing.”

Damien mutters something about the validity of the waltz box, but his voice reveals they have reeled him in from the wrong side of anxiety.

“This is when people start twirling, yes?” Arum asks.

“It _is_ ,” Amaryllis smiles.

It takes a while to figure out how to proceed correctly. Amaryllis looks expectantly between Arum and Damien to see who will take the lead. Arum doesn’t know enough to lead, but is much too large for Damien to lead in a twirl, which they find out the hard way. They stumble and pause and fall several times as too many people try to do the same thing in different directions at the same time, but slowly they learn. Arum’s legs are aching from hours upon hours of constant movement by the time they have figured out any sort of routine, but it’s entirely worth it.

The full moon shines brightly as Arum twirls both of his lovers away from him in opposite directions – it took Damien even longer to learn how to twirl backwards than it did for Arum to learn how to twirl to people at the same time – and then back into himself. As she dances back in, Amaryllis lets go of Arum’s hand to grab Damien’s and without a moment’s pause, Arum twirls the two away from him again, this time together and continuing Amaryllis’ projective. When Damien can’t go further, he leads Amaryllis through another twirl and suddenly they’re aligned, three people stretched as far from each other as they can be, but connected through firm grips on each other, never broken. They only rest like that for a second, maybe two, but that’s plenty of time for all of their eyes to meet. Then Damien withcalls Amaryllis and Arum withcalls both of them until they’ve twirled back into his chest.

He has lost count of how many times they had tried that move before and now it finally, _finally_ succeeded. They’re all giggling with excitement as Arum instinctually picks them up and twirls himself for once.

“Oh, do you want to continue developing the routine?” Amaryllis asks while Damien smiles dopily.

“I, uhm, that is…” Arum starts and quietly puts them down again.

“Hey, I wasn’t complaining,” Amaryllis points out. She leans into a close hug, her head resting on Arum’s chest, as they end up shuffling just enough around to pretend to still be dancing properly. It’s very important for the blessing to count, both humans had pointed out several times, that the dance is uninterrupted.

They all three want it to count. Arum initially mainly for the sake of proving a point to any human in the Citadel that still doubts their love, but now? Halfway – or however long they’ve been dancing, he has completely lost his sense of time in all the excitement – through the dance? He has absolutely no care in the world for anyone but his two humans. He acknowledged a long time ago that his mood improves significantly just by being in their company, but he is still surprised by how much he is enjoying the dancing. He lets go of all other thoughts, just fills his world with Damien and Amaryllis, Amaryllis and Damien, both skilled in parts of dancing the other finds difficult, both incredibly patient with and awed at Arum’s attempts at the human form of dancing.

Maybe next time he’ll introduce them to a monster way of dancing? It’s much simpler, no need to mind the other dancers, no steps to follow. If you bump into someone, that’s just a part of the dance now. It would be much easier to fit three people together in one dancing unit, though harder to put the meaning of romance, of belonging together into it.

Though actually, Arum notes with half a mind as he twirls Amaryllis with first one arm, then another, their current pattern or rather, lack thereof is probably not too far off from combining both schools. They had returned to the basic waltz square after completing their routine, but then wordlessly agreed it was too easy now. They had learned so much, they couldn’t just return to basics. Now they are twirling and dipping without plan, but with complete trust. It’s nice. Knowing what to expect from his partners, not from words, but from subtle clues and movements signaling their intent… Arum had scoffed the first time Damien and Amaryllis had mentioned the festival. What sort of human saint would bless _him_? For once he’s glad to be wrong.

When the sun finally rises, it’s far too soon.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope I managed to make it fluffy enough, walrus! Happy holidays in whatever shape you celebrate them. Trying to balance the three of them was a really fun challenge.
> 
> I must admit I don't know a whole lot about waltz and didn't let it hold me back, but I can recommend looking 3 person waltzing up on Youtube. There are a lot of different variations on the idea.


End file.
